What's Going On?
by SugarAndZombies
Summary: When Joy presses the puberty button, a lot of things change. Will the emotions be able to cope with these nuances?
1. Chapter I

I DON'T OWN INSIDE OUT (although I wish I did.) By the way rated teen for mentions of boobs, periods, and all that fun stuff.

"JOY! STOP!" Fear shouted. His mouth was filled with sandwich from the cafeteria. "Don't do it!"

"Do what?" Joy put the manual back into place and heaved herself up from her position on the floor.

Fear trembled and swallowed his sandwich. "Press.. _that_..button..."

"Don't worry!" Joy exclaimed, "I'm sure it will be fine."

The others congregated in the room to join Fear. They all looked at Joy expectantly. She mustered up her courage and scrambled over to the panel and pushed it. Immediately, a large red flare started to go off. "Alert. Puberty is beginning. Please hold on to the control panel as some new additions are made."

Everyone immediately clutched the board as tight as possible.

"JOY! What have you done!" Fear and Anger both looked at her like she was crazy.

"We're all gonna die." Sadness flopped herself down on the ground in her usual demeanor. Disgust just sat there, looking bored.

"Welcome your new recruits." A loud voice echoed throughout HQ as a pedestal in the back rose up. Two figures, one pink with neon purple hair, and the other sickly looking with neon green hair, stepped out.

The former bounded forward. "Hi everyone! I'm Love, and this is Shock. Yes, I know Riley has fear already, but this is on a different scale. Both emotions will need a part in this eventually." She, or should I say Love, shook everyone's hand eagerly.

Joy was confused. "Okay, so I'm Joy, that's Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust," she said, pointing to each one of them in turn. "But I don't get it. Why are you here?"

Love shrugged. "I guess we're only needed now. Shock, come forward and say hello!" The weird looking boy loped forward. "Now this is my kind of guy!" shouted Fear.

Everyone stared. "What?"

"I'm just saying. Fear and Shock are like best friends, at least in my mind." Fear strolled up the new emotion and grabbed his hand. "Welcome to headquarters. Would you like me to show you around?"

"Uh, Fear! You can't just, well, expect him to like you!" Joy started.

Shock, however, contradicted this statement by nodding and breaking the handshake. "Sure."

The two of them went upstairs. "I'd better come with them, to get settled and stuff, I think." Love hurried after them.

Sighing, Sadness looked at the memory rack and reckoned it needed to be bigger. "We should write a request to those memory guys and ask them for a bigger rack, Joy."

Disgust looked at the two of them and gagged. "Uh, maybe you two should lay off and I'll do something."

"Sounds good to me!" Joy, exhausted, dragged herself upstairs and flopped on her bed. "I don't know if this was a good or bad idea," She thought to herself.

"Hey, Joy? It's Sadness. Can I come in?" Sadness poked her head through the door.

"Fine."

Sadness walked over to one of the spinny chairs. "Did you even read about what the button did?"

Joy nodded and ran downstairs to get the manual. Once she was back in her room, she read the summary to Sadness, who was waiting patiently. " _The puberty button is a fascinating specimen. It opens up a whole new panel with buttons for breast development and the ability to enable the monthly menstrual cycle."_ She started to mumble, then stopped. "What the huh?" She flipped back to the glossary to look over the words, then continued to read. " _Once the button is pushed, there is no going back. The ideal age in which to push the button is 13, although 12 and 14 can be accommodated. Within days of the application of the puberty button, the period button must be pressed by one of the new emotions, which are Love and Worry. Often Love plays a major role in the life of your child. During this time, emotions may become slightly power hungry and lash out, but they must remember to stay calm as new events will cause them to change their ways. This manual covers all the little details of the puberty button that you would need to know."_

"Interesting. Did you even read this before you pressed the button?" Sadness asked.

"Well, yes, but I might have missed a few important details. I hope none of them made a true difference in anything." Joy lay facedown on the bed after this statement. She was worried that something had gone wrong, and that Riley would never be the same again. A page she had seen in the manual wasn't that reassuring. _On rare occasions,_ the binder stated, _development and periods will not follow the schedule created by the emotions, and will just happen by themselves. There is nothing that can be done about this problem, but eventually things even out and emotions can regain control._

Sadness got up from her chair. "Aww, Joy, you gotta think about it. I mean, we'd have to do it eventually, what's the harm in doing it now?"

"I guess you're right. I just think that we should look into this a little bit more."

"Joy!" Sadness snapped. "There's no way to reverse it, so we might as well just get used to it."

"It's just hard." Joy rolled over onto her back. "I've watched little Riley all her life, I can't believe we just pressed that button! It just seems really odd, you know?"

Sadness nodded. "Yeah. Let's go learn some more about these new emotions, now that we will have to live with them for the rest of our-or Riley's - lives!"

"Fine, let's go."

"Come on," Sadness heaved Joy up. "We have some emotions to deal with."


	2. Chapter 2

AGAIN- I don't own anything.

"So, what do you do again?" Joy asked Love as Riley entered school.

Love smirked and said, "You'll see. It involves boys. And stuff."

"Eww! But boys have cooties!" Disgust wrinkled her nose.

Riley was walking up to her locker and putting her books in. Class didn't start for another 15 minutes, so she decided to go and walk around with her books before class started.  
All of a sudden, she noticed a boy staring at her. Okay, maybe not at her, but somewhere in the vicinity. He had brown hair, brown eyes, green glasses, and a green and white hat.

Inside her brain, Love pushed a button, causing Riley to softly giggle. "What are you doing?!" Joy looked at Love with a confused expression, causing love to walk away from the console. "Gather round, everyone!" She called out.

"Okay, so now that everyone's here, this is how I work. I make sure that Riley seems mature. You know, getting rid of the whole boys have cooties thing." Disgust gasped along with Fear and Anger. "What I just did would be classified as pushing a crush button."

"So, like, now she wants to smash his head open?" Anger asked hopefully.

Love waved him off and laughed. "Uh, no, she likes him! And not as a friend. But in addition, I'm also in charge of making sure that she doesn't get put in the friend-zone, which is very important. Anger and/or Fear can take over if she's put in the friend-zone, and then Sadness can go from there."

Shock's eyes widened. "What's the friend-zone? Sounds d-dangerous!"

"No silly, it's not dangerous!" Love stared at him. "It means exactly what it sounds like. The boy thinks of her as just a friend, and then her heart is broken!"

A bell rang in the distance, and Joy pulled a lever to get her up and excited for class again. "Come on guys, we gotta be there for Riley - it's school!"

Hours later, and Riley was at a local park, deciding if she should go down the fire pole or not. Fear said no. Joy said yes. The rest of them were just sitting, watching. "We are not doing this and that is final!" Fear screamed at the rest of them.

However, when one of Riley's friends called up, "Are you a chicken? Just do it!" Sadness and Joy pulled levers and pushed buttons at the same time, causing Riley to jump off and slide down. Smiling, she caught the eye of the same boy she had seen at school the other day.

Love pushed the two out of the way. "Let me handle this."

She pulled on one of the handles, causing Riley to wave and walk towards him. "Love, what are you doing?!" Fear went crazy, pushing all sorts of buttons but not having enough power to stop Riley. "WHAT'S HAPPENING!" Fear went crazy, running all around until he finally collapsed like usual.

"Now that he's out of the way," Joy stood up and headed over to the console to push a button.

"Hi there!" Riley bounded over to the boy.

He looked at her and then smiled. "Hi. Don't you go to my school? I think I've seen you before."

"Yeah, that's me! My name's Riley." Love pushed something. "So, what's yours?"

He widened his eyes. "Uh, my name's Aaron. Well, listen, I've gotta go. Want to sit at my lunch table tomorrow maybe?" Aaron asked hopefully.

"Today's Friday."

"Uh, I mean, um," He stuttered, "Monday?"

"Sure!" Riley exclaimed, and with that, she went back to her group of friends.

Sadness pouted. "It could have gone better..."

"But," Love said, "We have a date! This is going to be so amazing!"

"He just asked us to sit at the same lunch table. What if he bails?!" With Fear still passed out cold, Shock took his position.

Disgust looked at him. "Seriously? It's just a lunch table. Nothing is going to happen."

Joy was oddly quiet throughout this entire exchange. She was still contemplating whether or not she should step back a little for Love to take over, at least during the date. Always being the dependable one was stressful, and she discovered that sometimes her approaches were untimely.

"Joy? You okay?" Sadness started over to her.

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Joy pushed herself up from the couch and smiled. "Yay! A date!"

The rest of the night was uneventful - dinner, a movie, some ice cream, and bed. "Okay! Time to send these down to long term everyone! Love?" Joy asked as Anger went to get rid of the days memories, "Can you stay on night duty with me so I can teach you the basics?"

Love nodded eagerly and started to shoo the others off. "Okay guys! Nice job. Time for bed!" The other emotions agreed and somberly made their way up to bed.

"Okay, so this button changes the 'channel', you could say, to Dreamworks. They create all of Riley's dreams," Joy explained as she pushed it, "And they usually follow the events of the day."

For a few minutes, they watched a replay of Riley's encounter with Aaron in silence. "So, this is what you do all night?" Love asked skeptically.

Joy shrugged. "Pretty much, I mean, sometimes they make nightmares and we have to put up memories as her 'dreams," She rolled her eyes. "But that's only if Dreamworks is being totally irresponsible."

"Well, goodnight! There isn't really anything else to do tonight, but if things get a little out of hand, just pull that lever," Joy motioned to it, "And pull out a memory from the emergency memory storage over there." She gestured to a small brown, glowing box filled to the brim with happy memories. "Got it?"

Love nodded, and Joy retreated to her room for the night. Happy with the dream selection, Love pulled up a chair and examined her reflection in a pocket mirror. Her purple hair tumbled down her shoulders and ended below her shoulder blades. The rest of her outfit seemed to follow the design of Disgust's, but she thought that was appropriate as their intentions were sort of similar.

"Oh no," Love whispered drowsily, hours later. After Fairy Dream Adventure Part 9 had finished, a sequence of first date nightmares started to play. "Seriously, Fear?"

She switched off the screen and plugged in a memory of Riley playing hockey with her best friends. "Better."


	3. Chapter 3

I DON'T OWN ANYTHING! (can I stop saying this now?)

The next morning, Joy and Anger found Love crashed on the chair she had pulled in front of the monitor. "That lazy son of a - " Anger started, before Joy cut him off.

"Hey, now, how many times have you stayed awake the WHOLE TIME on duty!?" A bloodshot eye found itself right in front of Anger's face. "Uh, are you, okay...?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Mister! Now, let's hurry it up and start the day!" Joy scowled and turned away for a second before turning back and smiling. "Well, looks like Boy/Boy Band Island is running this morning!"

A snorting sound was heard from the direction of the board. Both the emotions turned to see Sadness poking Love to wake up. "Wakey wakey!" She whispered. Slowly, Love sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Eeek! Sorry guys, I just fell asleep and..." She turned bright red.

Joy waved her hand. "It's fine. Sometimes dream duty can get really boring, especially once REM is over."

"Rem? What's that?"

"Rapid Eye Movement. It's basically when Riley has the most dreams during her sleep." Joy stepped forward and pulled a lever to get Riley up and excited for the day. Love, however, was still sleepy and seemed to not care about her job.

"Okay! I'm awake now!" While the others were busy working on Riley, Love came wandering in with a cup of coffee-like substance in her hand. She strolled up to the control panel and pulled a list seemingly out of nowhere. "Okay, two things on the agenda today: Make Riley get her period, and obsess over that boy. We ready?"

Anger's head started light up. "Okay, number one, who made you the boss, and two, what the HELL is a period?!"

Joy jumped in, along with Fear. "It's fine," Joy said. "Love, can you explain, please?"

She, Joy, had already seen the definition of a period in the manuals, and thought it would be extremely hilarious to see the other emotions' reactions to it.

"Okay," Love declared, "a period is basically when a girl bleeds for 5-7 days and hurts like crazy."

"BLEEDS?" Disgust shouted. She made her signature ew face and backed away.

Joy shrugged and half-smiled. "It's human biology. Look on the bright side, at least the girls in headquarters don't have to go through it!"

"That would be sad," Sadness grumbled. "Well, if it comes down to this, just do what you need to do then." T

The rest of the emotions took a step back as Worry walked up to the control board. He walked over to the new section that controlled, well, I don't have to tell you do I, and pressed the "Period" button.

"NO!" Anger pushed his way to the front. "What have you done!"

Joy gasped. "Disgust, Fear, go take a break and don't come back for a while, okay?!" She shoved them into their respective rooms and closed the door, only to find them out again. "We don't want to miss anything," Disgust said.

Putting her hand to her head, Joy sighed. "Okay, fine."

Getting back to the main room, they found the rest of the emotions writhing on the floor in pain. "What's the matter-" Fear sunk down to his knees and did the same as the others. Joy found the pain bearable and continued her work. Apparently, so did Disgust. Joy braced herself as they followed Riley to the bathroom. Get ready for it...

"BLOOD! IT'S BLOOD! WE'RE DYING!" Fear stood up and began screaming and running around. Disgust fainted.

"That's a first, I suppose," Love shouted to Joy over the din, looking at Disgust. Joy limply nodded.

This was going to be a looong week.

By the second day, the emotions, or at least Disgust and Fear, were slightly better about the whole thing. The "telling your mom about it" part made everyone cringe, but since Fear was in control, the rest of them needed to calm him down at intervals or else he would cause Riley to Freak with a capital F.

Love was on overdrive, but her and Anger seemed to be in a constant fight. "BUT HE'S CUTE!" Love often argued, shoving Anger's big hands off the panel and pressing a button.

In retaliation, Anger usually replied in some form of, "Well he looked at me weird earlier!"

No one ever seemed to really win that fight, but they kept going with it anyways. It was worse when the cramps started to flare up, and Anger started going insane about it. Some of the emotions had to hold him back at times to keep him away from messing up the whole control board. Sadness was the only one that seemed fully in control of everything. For some reason she kept pulling the levers and clicking buttons whenever basically, well, anything happened. Disgust acted like she had quit her job, only taking a turn at the 'wheel' when it was absolutely necessary. For example, when the school served broccoli with lunch, Disgust, Anger, and Sadness all ambled up to the table and started pushing everything and anything possible. Joy seemed like the only cool and collected one, but often got pushed aside instead of getting to help.

"Guys, maybe we should calm down. We don't have to eat it, that's all!" An exasperated Joy tried to reason with the others for the umpteenth time that day.

Anger's eyes flared up. "Do you not understand, Joy? There is BROCCOLI ON THAT PLATE!"

"It's so sad..." Sadness agreed, pushing a button on the board. Suddenly, everybody looked up in horror as they saw Riley jump up and run to the bathroom.

Joy stared. "What have you done, Sadness?"

"Honestly, I don't know! It was like I was being controlled by an invisible force or something! This is madness!" With that, Sadness then sunk down to the floor and sighed.

Shock was standing behind all of them with a slack expression on his face. He had been like this ever since he saw a memory of the first period beginning enter the core memory spinner and create a new island - "Puberty Island." Thankfully, a lot of it was obstructed by the other islands, but what he did see was a fountain of blood coming out of nowhere. Since no one had much use for him these days, Shock took to standing by the window, admiring the islands and memories in turn.

Joy looked at Shock with curiosity on her face. She didn't know if it was a good idea to let him continue like this, but she decided to leave him be.

After all, nothing else could happen after this, right?

Okay, just asking, if any female species out there are reading, can you please tell me if I actually described period symptoms correctly? Okay thanks! :)


End file.
